Ep. 190: Hiring An OFS Who’s Already Working For Someone Else

Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at outsourcing to the Philippines. This is episode 190, hiring an OFS who already has another job. Okay, so you're recruiting someone. You found it on an ofs who? An online Filipino specialist who's really good. You're getting along really well. You're just about ready to hire them. You've asked them, what other jobs do you have? And they tell you, by the way, I have another job. I hope that's okay. So is that okay? Is the question. So, so here's what I think about it. Number one, it's not ideal. It's not the ideal situation, but it may be your only choice. So here, this is, this is usually when this happens. So number one, you're hiring a technical person and it's kind of hard to find that technical specialty or you've recruited and almost everybody you found already has another job because there's enough demand for this technical specialty that people aren't like out of work all that much. Right. So your options are limited. That's situation number one. Situation number two is you just need someone part time, but that OFS needs a full time salary. Like they have to live and they have to work full time. So hiring someone part time, they're definitely going to have a full time job. And if they don't have a full time job already, they're gonna keep looking for a full time job. So here are some thoughts about this. First and foremost, like, this is awesome. You found someone that's trying to be totally honest with you in telling you that they already have another job. That's awesome. So this shows they don't want to lie to you, they want to be upfront. They don't want to be hired under false pretenses. It may not be your ideal situation and they're giving you the chance to walk away. That's really great. So if you still decide to hire this person, here's a couple things that how you can make this work. So number one, recognize that if they already have another job, that's probably their priority. Unless they have a part time job somewhere else and now they're getting a full time job from you. They the full time job is almost always the priority. Next, knowing that they have a job, you need to negotiate around this. So like how many hours a week do you expect them to work for you? Is there a specific time frame when you expect those hours to go on? How do you expect them to report those Hours to you. Talk through this with them then. What is your expected output? Do you have an idea of how much work that you'll expect to get done? How quickly do you expect them to respond to you? If, if you're hiring them part time and they already have a full time job, or if they have either way part time and full time switched, what are the expectations of how many hours and when are they responding and what's the work output like? Okay, so then let's go back to the second situation they gave, which is that you're giving a part time job so nobody can survive on just part time work, especially not in the Philippines. It's not reasonable. So you need to expect them to have a full time job. If you're hiring part time because you, you can't afford to hire someone full time, that's okay. Maybe something that you can try is to hire someone that is less experienced and train them, bring them up in your company. That's when I got started. That's what I did. I mean, I hired this guy. I didn't really have an option because it was an agency that was bringing someone in. They brought someone in off the street and he knew nothing but trained him. And I worked with him and I taught him what I knew, which you know, I knew some stuff, I didn't know everything. I didn't know nearly as much as I know now. But I taught him what I could and he's still with me today. That was 2005. Next, don't be afraid to still hire them if they're the right fit for you and they already have another job. It might just work out in the end. I got an email from someone this week that said that he, when he was hiring someone, the person that fit the best already had another job and she told him that she would not quit her other job. She was very dedicated to the other job and he didn't want someone that was like that. He wanted someone full time, just with him. But in the end he could tell like it was a good fit. So he hired her part time. He said that it's been a year, she's been amazing and just this week she quit her other job and she came full time to him. So I'm not saying that's like the best approach is to pressure them to quit their other job or to say that, oh, at some point they're gonna quit. But I'm just saying that if you find the right fit, it can be really, really good to hire them anyway. So set some expectations. Start working together, see what it looks like, and you can adjust from there. If something isn't working out, say something like, I expected your productivity to be here, but it's only here. What's going on? Like, is there something wrong? Or your first week was really amazing and then the productivity dropped off. Why? What's causing this? Is your other job too demanding? Is there not enough time? Sometimes people think, I have extra time, so I'm going to get an extra job, and they don't realize the importance of that extra time, and then it becomes too demanding, and then they work on their first job slips and they work on their second job slips and just. Just pay attention to it. And if that's going on, then ask and say something. And maybe you say, okay, well, let's cut your hours back and let's cut your payback. Because I don't want to be. I don't want to continue doing this the way it is. So. And that's. That's a reasonable thing to do. And if they're really. If they're slacking, then they'll understand. It'll be fine. The most important thing in all this is hire someone and try it out and see if it works for you.